Packet-switched split computer having disassociated peripheral controller and plural data buses

ABSTRACT

A network interface is described in which a single computer bus is split over a long distance into two or more intercommunicating buses. On one bus, processing and applications are provided and on the other remote bus, peripheral and local controllers are provided. The buses communicate through a series of: bridge, a first communications controller, a second communications controller, and bridge. Between the communications controllers, a communication path provides long distance communication via a packet-switched network.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60/754,602 filed on Dec. 30, 2005, the entire contents of which are herein incorporated by reference. This application is related to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/937,511, filed Sep. 10, 2004, which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/150,075, filed May 20, 2002, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,807,639, which is a division of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/430,163, filed Oct. 29, 1999, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,418,494, which is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/430,162, filed Oct. 29, 1999, now U.S. Pat. No. 6,748,473, which claims Priority from U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/106,255, filed Oct. 30, 1998. The contents of each of those patents and applications are incorporated herein by reference.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to computer networking systems, and in one configuration to a computer system for remotely separating a computer motherboard from peripheral cards that would normally plug into the motherboard such that communication between the computer motherboard and the peripheral cards is by way of a packet-switched network.

BACKGROUND AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

FIG. 24 illustrates an example embodiment of the so-called split computer. As shown in FIG. 24, the remote target room 185 contains a number of targets having CPUs, hard drives, etc. One target 186 is shown connected to a work station 188 via a communications line 187 (illustrated as twisted pair). The target 186 is also referred to as the host side 186 and the work station 188 is also referred to as the remote side 188. On the host side 186, the CPU 189 communicates on a host bus 190. The host bus 190 can be a standard PCI bus within a CPU motherboard, or can be any other type of computer data bus. On the remote side 188, a remote bus 193 communicates with various local controllers 194 which will be described later in greater detail. Among other functions, the local controllers 194 support various peripherals 195 located at the work station 188. As one can see from FIG. 24, in effect, the bus that would ordinarily carry communications from CPU 189 to controllers 194 has been “split” into buses 190 and 193 communicating with each other via interfacing 191 and 192 and a communications line 187 such as twisted pair (or other communications media).

The practical result of the split computer is that the host bus 190 and remote bus 193 must be interfaced such that the CPU 189 can engage in normal communications with the local controllers 194. Ideally, the host bus 190 and remote bus 193 will be capable of communications along a large range of distances including a few feet, as far as one corner of a building to another, and even greater distances if necessary. The present invention is not limited to any particular type of communications line 187 (such as wire line, twisted pair (shielded and unshielded), fiber optic, air wave, etc.), but it would be particularly advantageous if the present invention allowed the host bus 190 to communicate with the remote bus 193 over long distances and/or via a packet-switched communications network. For this purpose, special interfacing 191 and 192 must be provided between the host bus 190 and remote bus 193 at the host side 186 and remote side 188.

Some schemes already exist for communication along a computer bus and between plural computer buses. Examples of these prior art interfaces are shown and described with respect to FIGS. 1-3. Thus, as shown in FIG. 2, a PCI type bus 12 may include a number of components communicating along the bus 12 in accordance with the standard PCI local bus specifications. The PCI local bus specifications are standards by which computer communications can occur within internal buses of a PC-based computer. The PCI local bus specification rev. 2.1, dated Jun. 1, 1995, is an example prior art PCI bus specification and is incorporated herein by reference. In FIG. 2, the PCI bus 12 provides communication between a master 14 and one or more targets 15A-15B. Communications occur when the master 14 provides information addressed to a particular targets 15A-15B and places that communication on the PCI bus 12. Such communications along PCI buses 12 are not uncommon.

The timing of communications between a master 14 and targets 15A-15B is traditionally specified in the bus specification. Thus, the PCI bus specification or PCI bus 12 provides hard limits on how much time can elapse before a command issued by master 14 “times out” without receiving response. In other words, master 14 may send a command to targets 15A-15B on PCI bus 12 with an address for target 15A to perform a particular operation. The target 15A must receive the command and respond to the command within a certain time set by the PCI standard before the master 14 will time out on the issued command.

Thus, as shown in FIG. 2, master 14 issues a command at clock C₀ to target 15B. Target 15B will operate on the command and return a response (or acknowledgment) to master 14, which will be received by master 14 no later than C₀+X where X is a number of clocks dictated by the bus standard. If C₀+X exceeds the PCI standard for response time to a command, master 14 will time out on the command before it receives its response from target 15B. This situation is rarely, if ever, a design constant for a typical PCI system but it does limit the physical size of a PCI bus and has application to the present invention, as will be described.

The time out aspects of bus communications pose a problem in the split computer paradigm. Referring again to FIG. 24, assuming CPU 189 to be a client speaking on host bus 190, the CPU 189 will be sending commands to local controller 194 via the path (in order): host bus 190, interface 191, twisted pair 187, interface 192, and remote bus 193. Unfortunately, this distance of travel precludes the local controller 194 from operating on the command and responding to the CPU 189 in time before the CPU 189 times out on the command. In other words, the standard bus time out restrictions are too small for transmission response to occur from CPU 189 to local controllers 194 and back to CPU 189 before the time out occurs.

FIG. 1 illustrates a prior art arrangement which addresses communication between plural PCI buses 12 and 13. In the embodiment of FIG. 1, bridge 10 allows an increased number of masters/targets on a PCI system by connecting a first bus with a second bus to provide a second set of loads. The bridge 10 is a known device and may be, for example, a Digital Semiconductor PCI-to-PCI bridge. An example of such a bridge is the Digital Semiconductor 21152 bridge, described in Digital Semiconductor's February 1996 data sheet, which is incorporated herein by reference.

As shown in FIG. 3, the bridge 10 assists the clients 14/16 and targets 15A-B/17A-B to communicate with each other over the PCI buses 12 and 13. Thus, a master 14 communicates differently to targets 15A-B than it would to targets 17A-B. In the former case, if master 14 desires to read a memory location of target 15A, master 14 simply sends an address to target 15A on PCI bus 12 and target 15A acknowledges the request to master 14 on the PCI bus 12, before the time out condition occurs (and can then return the data). In the latter case, however, the target 17A cannot receive and return the information requested before master 14 will time out. Thus, the master 14 sends its read request to bridge 10 on PCI bus 12. The bridge returns an instruction to master 14 instructing the master 14 in essence “sorry, try again later.” Meanwhile, however, bridge 10 sends the read request to the target 17A on PCI bus 13. As the master 14 continues asking the bridge 10 for the read request and the bridge 10 continues to tell the master 14 “try again,” the target 17A is retrieving the requested data from its memory. Once the target 17A has retrieved the requested data, it puts it on PCI bus 13 to bridge 10. In the next instance in which master 14 sends the read request to bridge 10, the bridge 10 responds within the time out period with the requested information previously sent to it by the target 17A.

The prior art arrangement of FIG. 3 cannot be simply substituted into the split computer environment, however, since there are still time and distance restrictions on the bridge 10. The distance between the master 14 and bridge 10 cannot be so long that the client will time out on its command before it receives the “not yet” response from the bridge 10. Thus, the distance between master M and bridge 10 (FIG. 1) is limited by the bus standards and by normal propagation delays, as is the distance between bridge 10 and target S.

Thus, the solution to the split computer distance communications of FIG. 24 is not so simple as replacing the interfacing 191 and 192 with bridge 10 since that substitution will not yield satisfactory distances between the remote target room 185 (i.e., host side 186) and the work station 188. The present invention increases the distance between host side 186 and remote side 188 by essentially taking time out of the computer bus transmission factors. In other words, with the present invention, instead of a client timing out while data travels, the only significant time constraint in getting data from a target to a master (after a master commands the target) is the number of times a master will ask the target for data before it stops requesting. With the present invention, time out conditions should not occur as a result of responses to a command arriving too late.

In accordance with an example embodiment of the present invention, communications received from a bridge (as non-packet data) are packetized and communicated between specialized circuits (e.g., field programmable gate arrays and/or ASICs) and delivered to a second bridge for communication onto a remote computer bus (again as un-packeted data).

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The foregoing and other objects, features, and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following more particular description of preferred embodiments as illustrated in the accompanying drawings in which reference characters refer to the same parts throughout the various views. The drawings are not necessarily to scale, emphasis instead being placed upon illustrating the principles of the invention.

FIGS. 1-3 are prior art example embodiments of PCI standard bus communications protocols;

FIGS. 4 and 5 are example embodiments of the present invention illustrating different types of communications between respective buses;

FIG. 6 is an example application of the embodiments of FIGS. 4 and 5 into the split computer arena;

FIG. 7 is an example embodiment of the bridge and communications controller block diagrams associated with either a host or terminal side of the split computer;

FIG. 8 is an extension of FIG. 7 illustrating both the host and terminal sides with associated block diagram representations of the circuitry;

FIG. 9 is an alternative embodiment of the host and terminal bus connection circuitry;

FIG. 10 is a networking protocol hierarchy associated with an example embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 11 is a network to DLL interface logic layering in accordance with an example embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 12 is a data link layer representation in accordance with an example embodiment of the present invention,

FIG. 13 is a flow diagram of data progressing between a host network layer and terminal network layer in accordance with an example embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 14 is a functional block diagram of the data link layers in accordance with an example embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 15 is a block diagram of a DLL to physical layer interface in accordance with an example embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 16 is a logic diagram of AckNack generation;

FIG. 17 are example header cells used in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 18 is example data cells used in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 19 are example miscellaneous cells also used in accordance with the present invention;

FIGS. 20 and 21 are flow diagrams illustrating an example method of assembling PCI responses and requests, respectively;

FIGS. 22 and 23 are example embodiments of the present invention illustrating the use of side band channels for PS/2 peripherals;

FIG. 24 is an example embodiment of the split computer in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 25 is an example embodiment of a split computer in accordance with the present invention where a remote administrator can configure either or both of the host and terminal sides;

FIG. 26 is an example embodiment of a split computer in accordance with the present invention, where multiple communications controllers on respective host sides communicate with a single communications controller on a terminal side;

FIG. 27 is an example embodiment of the split computer in accordance with the present invention, where multiple communications controllers on respective host sides communicate with a single communications controller on a terminal side that includes an integrated KVM switch;

FIG. 28 is an example embodiment of the split computer in accordance with the present invention, where multiple communications controllers on respective host sides communicate with a single communications controller on a terminal side that includes an integrated KVM switch where the terminal side is incorporated onto a daughtercard;

FIG. 29 is an example embodiment similar to FIG. 4, but wherein the two bus configuration of FIG. 4 has been replaced with a single bus split into two halves; and

FIG. 30 is an example embodiment similar to FIG. 8, but wherein the two bus configuration of FIG. 8 has been replaced with a single bus split into two halves.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PRESENTLY PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

The present invention provides appropriate interfacing circuits 191 and 192 (FIG. 24) such that host buses 190 and 193 may transparently communicate via standard protocols over long distances and over any convenient communications line 187. With the appropriate interfacing 191 and 192, the advantages of the split computer paradigm described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,748,473 can be realized to great potential.

FIG. 4 illustrates in block diagram format an example embodiment of such interfacing circuitry. In FIG. 4, a client 22 and targets 23 communicate via a common host bus 20. At what can be a very remote location from the host bus 21, targets 28 communicate via another, separate terminal bus 21. As described herein, the host and terminal buses can be either the same kind of buses or different buses. When they are different buses, intermediate logic is responsible for performing translation so that commands and/or control signals of one bus are translated or adapted for transmission to the other bus. The buses described herein can be any type of computer bus, including, but not limited to, computer peripheral buses such as PCI, PCI express, MicroChannel, etc.

In accordance with this embodiment, a first bridge 24 communicates with the host bus 20 and provides a bidirectional communication to a first communications controller 26 (illustrated as a field programmable gate array (FPGA) (or alternatively an ASIC)). The first communications controller 26 communicates with a second communications controller 27 (illustrated as a second field programmable gate array) via a communications line 187, such as twisted pair 187. The second communications controller 27 communicates via a bi-directional link to a second bridge 25, which communicates via a bi-directional link to the terminal bus 21. The first and second communications controllers may be, for example, gigabit Ethernet controllers over CAT-5 style cables or PCI express controllers over fiber using one or more channels between the communications controllers.

As described above, when the client 22 desires to communicate with a target 23 on the common host bus 20, it can do so in accordance with prior art, known protocols such as PCI and PCI Express. If, however, the client 22 needs to communicate with a master/target 28 on the terminal bus 21, its ability to do so becomes time restricted, as described in detail above. The operation of the present invention to accommodate the communications between a device on the host bus 20 with a device on the remote terminal bus 21 differs depending on the type of command issued by the originating device.

Specifically, the preferred embodiment of the present invention is described with respect to a so-called “one action” communication (FIG. 4) and a “two action” communication (FIG. 5). In a one action transaction, the entire transaction is completed upon the issuance of the request (for example, from the client 22). In a two action transaction, the transaction is not completed until both the request action is completed and a response action is completed. In other words, one action transactions require no return data or status; they're considered completed when the request action is generated and accepted. An example of a one action transaction is a so-called posted write action in which a device writes data into a memory of another device without requiring any response action. It should be noted that the only current PCI-standard one action transaction is the posted write command, however, the present invention is anticipated for use not only in communicating PCI transactions but in also communicating non-PCI transactions. Thus, one could expect that several different types of commands can be envisioned within the one-action transactions routine discussed with respect to FIG. 4 below.

Referring now to FIG. 4, the one-action example embodiment will be described with respect to a posted write function in which the client 22 intends to write to the memory of target S_(d). First, client 22, at communication 30, issues the write command, together with the data to be written, onto host bus 20 addressed to bridge 24. The bridge 24 immediately acknowledges the posted write command in the communications set 30, whereupon the client 22 considers the transaction ended. Bridge 24 then communicates the posted write command, at communications set 31, to the first communications controller. The first communications controller 26, in the communication set 31, acknowledges receipt of the posted write from bridge 24.

The first communications controller 26 then packets the information for long distance communication over the communications line 187 and communicates the posted write command at communication 32 to the second communications controller 27. It should be noted that one of the operations performed by the first communications controller 26 is to convert data received in interactive format via communication set 31 into a packet format for transmission to the second communications controller 27 at communication 32. That is, the PCI standard, for example, is not a packet transmission, but is interactive and does not follow a given data format. On the other hand, the communication between the first and second communications controllers 26 and 27 is a packet transmission, conducive to long distance communication. In one embodiment, the communication is also formatted to be a packet-switched communication.

Once the second communications controller 27 receives the packeted posted write command at communication 32, it acknowledges receipt of the command at communication 33, converts the posted write either (a) back into the original format (consistent with communication 31) or (b) into a format compatible with bridge 25, and sends the data to bridge 25 at communication set 34. Thus, at communication 34, the data has been reconverted back into the format which is either common to the buses 20 and 21, for example, the PCI interactive data format, or at least compatible with bridge 25. Bridge 25 receives the posted write command at communication set 34, acknowledges it to the second communications controller 27, and sends it on (either unchanged or after conversion) to bus 21 at communication set 35. Once on the bus 21, target S_(d) recognizes the command as addressed to itself, retrieves the command at communication set 35, and acknowledges the command to bridge 25. Having received the posted write command information and the data to be written, the target S_(d) simply writes the data received into its memory and ends the transaction.

As one can see from FIG. 4, the one-action transaction scenario is a relatively simple application of the present invention in which PCI data is packeted and formatted for long distance transmission between the first and second communications controllers 26 and 27. As far as the system is concerned, everything between bridge 24 and bridge 25, as far as the system is concerned, acts and appears to be simply a computer bus, just like buses 20 and 21. In reality, however, the first and second communications controllers 26 and 27 are emulating computer buses to the respective bridges 24 and 25, but therebetween are performing data conversion and timing functions that are invisible to the rest of the bus circuitry, e.g., PCI circuitry.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example embodiment of the so-called two-action transaction. The structure of FIG. 5 is identical to that of FIG. 4, but the communications sets between the various components will be different, as described below. The example embodiment of FIG. 5 will be described with respect to a “read” operation in which client 22 requests data from the memory of target S_(d). First, at communication 36, client 22 issues the read command onto host bus 20 identifying target S_(d) and the address location for the read operation. As described earlier, if the master 22 were to request the read operation from one of the targets 23 on the common bus 20, the target 23 would need to respond to the client 22 within a predetermined time before the client 22 timed out on the read command. To accommodate this, the bridge 24 responds in the communications set 36 to the client 22 essentially asking the client 22 to “retry” the read command again later. Thus, during the course of the communications set 36-47 described below, the client 22, in bridge 24 will be continuously exchanging “read” commands and “sorry, retry” responses.

In the meantime, at communications set 37, bridge 24 communicates the read command to the first communications controller 26. Because this side of the first communications controller 26 is intended to emulate a computer bus, the first communications controller 26 responds to the bridge 24 in the communications set 37 with the same kind of response that bridge 24 is giving client 22, namely “sorry, retry.” Then, the first communications controller 26 packets the information into communication 38 and sends it to the second communications controller 27 on the communications line 187. At communication 43, the second communications controller 27 acknowledges receipt of the communication 38 to the first communications controller 26. Of course, as the first communications controller 26 is packetizing and delivering the communication 38 to the second communications controller 27 and receiving the acknowledgment 43, it continues to tell bridge 24 that the continuously generated read commands have to be “retried later.”

Once the second communications controller 27 receives the data 38 from the communications line 187, it converts it back to the bus standard of bus 20 or converts it to a format that is at least compatible with bridge 25. Thus, the second communications controller 27, at communications set 39, informs bridge 25 that a read request destined for target S_(d) at a particular memory location needs to be delivered to target S_(d). Bridge 25, in communication set 39, informs the second communications controller 27 that it must retry the request later and in the meantime provides the request (either in original form or in a converted form) to target S_(d) via communications set 40. Server S_(d) provides the requested data from the requested memory location at communications set 40. Since bridge 25 and target S_(d) are on the common bus 21, the communication between bridge 25 and target S_(d) must follow the standard bus protocol e.g., in which the response from target S_(d) occurs before the bridge 25 times out on its read request.

From the above description, one can see that each component in the stream of communications need not be fully cognizant of all operations downstream. In essence, client 22, bridge 24, and bridge 25, all function as though they are communicating directly with target S_(d), when in fact only bridge 25 is doing so. Further, as between bridge 24 and bridge 25, they can be standard bridges which believe that they are speaking to each other via a common bus, when in fact the first and second communications controllers 26 and 27 are merely emulating a bus to the bridges 24 and 25 while providing long distance communication processing therebetween. Thus, the first communications controller 26, communications line 187 and the second communications controller 27 together form a mock bus to the remainder of the FIG. 5 system.

The return path of the two action transactions of FIG. 5 will now be described. Recall that target S_(d) has read the requested memory address and provided the requested data to the bridge 25. While that was occurring, bridge 25 was instructing the second communications controller 27 via communications set 39 that its read requests could not be performed and should be retried. After bridge 25 has received the requested data from target S_(d), on the next request from the second communications controller 27, bridge 25 responds with the requested data (that had been previously received from target S_(d)). Thus, at communications set 42, the second communications controller 27 requests the data and bridge 25 provides the requested data to the second communications controller 27 via a bus standard compatible with bridge 25. The second communications controller 27 then converts the data into packet format and communicates the packets at communication 44 to the first communications controller 26 the next time the first communications controller 26 requests the data at communication 45. The first communications controller 26 then re-converts the packeted information back to the format compatible with bridge 24 and, in response to the next-received read request command from bridge 24 to the first communications controller 26, the first communications controller 26, at communication set 46, responds with the requested data. Similarly, once the bridge 24 has received the requested data, it provides the data to master 22 at communication set 47. Just after the master 22 provides the next request for the information.

In essence, the components between the master 22 and the target S_(d), in the above example embodiment, provide a stream of components for the data flow, in which each predecessor component in a request action transaction is put on hold by instructing the predecessor to “retry later” the same request action while the successor component in reality has passed the request along the line. The “retries” continue on until the data is received back up the line and, in the next subsequent “retry,” the requested data is delivered.

FIGS. 4 and 5 illustrate the example embodiment of the present invention in the context of generic “client” and “target” devices on two remote buses 20 and 21. FIG. 6 extends the generic application of the above invention to the split computer environment of, for example, FIG. 24. In FIG. 24, the host side 186 includes the processor and application software communicating on the host bus 190, while the remote side 188 includes the local controllers 194 and peripherals 195, etc. communicating on the remote bus 193. In FIG. 6, the host bus 20 is analogous to the host bus 190 in FIG. 24 and the terminal bus 21 is analogous to the remote bus 193. Thus, on the host side of FIG. 6, the processor 52A will provide processing power and the hard drive 51 will provide applications software, both communicating on the host bus 20. Further devices 52B and 52C will of course be included on the host side 186 of the split computer as well. On the terminal side of the split computer, terminal bus 21 provides communication to peripheral controller 53, video controller 54, sound card 55, and other local devices 56. The breakdown of processor/applications components that will communicate on host bus 20 versus local controllers that will communicate on terminal bus 21 are discernible from U.S. Pat. No. 6,748,473.

As shown in FIG. 6, the devices on host bus 20 communicate with the other half of its split computer on terminal bus 21 via the same type of component arrangement described previously with respect to FIGS. 4 and 5. Specifically, between host bus 20 and terminal bus 21 are bridge 24, first communications controller 26, second communications controller 27, and bridge 25, as shown in FIG. 6. The communications protocol between the host bus 20 and terminal bus 21 can be in accordance with that described with respect to FIG. 4 and FIG. 5 in both the one-action and two-action scenarios. Thus, for example, processor 52A can provide a write action to sound card 55 in accordance with the one action transaction described above with respect to FIG. 4. Further, processor 52A can provide a read action from video controller 54, via the two action transaction example described above with respect to FIG. 5.

FIG. 7 illustrates further detail of an example embodiment of the present invention. In FIG. 7, the bridge 24 (reference FIGS. 4 and 5) is shown communicating with six components contained within the first communications controller 26. In particular, the bridge 24 outputs commands/responses with elements 64-66 for delivery onto communications line 187 and receives commands/responses from elements 60-62 from the communications line 187. Thus, when bridge 24 is the recipient of an action/response, the action/response comes from the communications line 187 to the incoming packet engine 62 through FIFO 61, into master controller 60, into the bridge 24. Similarly, when actions/requests are being sent from the bridge 24 onto the twisted pairs 63, they proceed to target controller 66, and to FIFO 65, into outgoing packet engine 64, and onto the communications line 187.

In FIG. 7, the term “target” refers to the elements which act as the target of a transaction. So, for example, if a bridge is sending a write command, the bridge puts the write address on the bus and the target 66 will accept address and data and provide appropriate handshaking to the bridge to accept the transaction. Once the target controller 66 receives the transaction, it delivers it to FIFO 65 which provides buffering of multiple transactions that have been accepted by the target 66. This buffering serves several functions. First, since the bus between bridge 24 and target controller 66 is non-packeted, interactive data flow (similar to a voice conversation on 1920s-vintage telephone equipment), the target controller 66 can be accepting actions/responses from bridge 24 at a different rate and protocol than will be delivered onto the twisted pairs 63 in packet format. Secondly, the FIFO 65 provides the opportunity to change clock domains. In other words, with the embodiment of FIG. 7, the element of time and the rate of transaction has essentially been taken out of the bus transmission equation because the present might change to packet form and because the communications controllers provide the continuous “try-again” feature.

Instead of the bridge 24 timing out while data travels, the target controller 66 is occupying bridge 24 with “retries” while the FIFO 65 changes the clock domain entirely. The change in clock domain shown in FIG. 7 has an additional added benefit. Whereas in a bridge prior art system such as shown in FIG. 3, the PCI bus 12 and PCI bus 13 operate at a common clock rate (i.e., bridge 10 pulls its clock off of PCI bus 12 and delivers commands to PCI bus 13 at the PCI bus 12 clock rate), the present invention can bridge buses of completely different clock rates.

In the embodiment of FIG. 7, for example, there is nothing that stops the first and second communications controllers 26 and 27 (FIGS. 4 and 5) from running at different clock rates such that the connection between the first and second communications controllers 26 and 27 is a clock break between buses 20 and 21. This occurs in part because FIFOs 61 and 65 (FIG. 7) allow the clock domain to be changed by buffering data to be packeted/de-packeted. Thus, with the present invention, disparate bus rates can nevertheless communicate with each other. For example, a PCI bus can be used on one side while a PCI-express bus is used on the other side. Alternatively, a PCI-express bus can be used on both sides just as a PCI bus can be used on both sides.

It should be noted that although FIG. 7 implies that certain of the components 24 and 60-66 may be separate chips (e.g., Very Large Scale Integrated Circuit (VLSI) chips), any or all of the components shown in FIG. 7 could be combined into a single chip or two or more chips. Thus, for example, the bridges, master controllers and target controllers (e.g., in FIGS. 7-9) could all be incorporated into a single chip. Similarly, the IPE 62 and OPE 64 can be integrated into a single chip as well.

Once the FIFO 65 has buffered the data, the outgoing packet engine 64 converts the data into packets defined by a protocol designed for transmission onto twisted pairs 63. Additional functional blocks are included in the OPE 64 and will be described later with respect to FIG. 14.

FIG. 8 is an extension of FIG. 7 in that it discloses the components of FIG. 7 for both the host and terminal sides of the preferred embodiment. In particular, host side 70 includes the host bus 20 together with the components shown in FIG. 7. On the terminal side 71, terminal bus 21 communicates with a mirror image set of components. Specifically, terminal bus 21 includes a link to bridge 25, and the bridge 25 includes links to target controller 73 and master controller 74. Target controller 73 communicates with FIFO 75, which communicates with outgoing packet engine 77. On the receive side, master controller 74 provides action/requests to bridge 25 and receives them from FIFO 76. FIFO 76 communicates with incoming packet engine 78. The packet engines 62, 64, 77, and 78 communicate over communications lines 187 (e.g., twisted pair or optical fiber).

It should be noted that FIFOs 61, 65, 75 and 76 do not act as traditional FIFOs, but are modified as follows. Using FIFO 65 as an example, traditionally, bridge 24 would provide a posted write to target controller 66, which provides the posted write to FIFO 65. Once the FIFO 65 sent the data out, traditionally it would eliminate it. But, the present FIFO is not traditional. Instead, it takes into account the possibility that transmission may not accurately occur. For example, once FIFO 65 sends the data to OPE 64, which transmits it to IPE 78, noise on the communications line 187 may have so severely degraded the transmission that IPE 78 does not receive it. In another example, IPE 78 may receive the data from OPE 64 via the communications line 187 but may be unable to deliver it to FIFO 76 because the FIFO 76 is full. Recalling that bridge 24 presumes that it is speaking with another PCI compliant component (such as another bridge), it will not be customarily programmed to retransmit data as a result of mis-transmission between the OPE 64 and IPE 78/FIFO 76. Thus, the FIFO 65 in the present invention retains all messages sent to OPE 64 until it receives an acknowledgment that transmission to the FIFO 76 was successful. That is, FIFO 65 will receive either an ACK, an NACK, or will time out each time it sends a command to OPE 64. The ACK and NACK functions will be described in greater detail later with respect to FIG. 16.

Referring to FIG. 8, the path of the communications will be as follows beginning with FIFO 65. FIFO 65 provides the command to OPE 64 and then retains the command in memory for the moment. OPE 64 packetizes and formats the data, sends it onto the communications line 187, from which it is received by IPE 78. If IPE 78 successfully receives the packet, it communicates it to FIFO 76, which will accept it if the FIFO 76 is not full. If the transmission is successfully made to FIFO 76, IPE 78 will communicate an acknowledgment to OPE 77. Note that IPE 78 does not acknowledge to the OPE 64 because communications are unidirectional between bridges 24 and 25 and proceed in a counterclockwise fashion relative to FIG. 8. Thus, IPE 78 communicates its acknowledgment to OPE 77, which communicates the acknowledgment over the communications line 187 to IPE 62. Upon receiving the acknowledgment from OPE 77, IPE 62 issues an FIFO clear function to FIFO 65, allowing the FIFO 65 to clear its buffer of the data provided to OPE 64.

On the other hand, if the IPE 78 encounters a full FIFO 76, it issues a NACK command to OPE 77, which communicates the NACK over communications line 187 to IPE 62. IPE 62 then communicates the NACK to FIFO 65 and/or OPE 64 whereupon OPE 64 collects the data back from FIFO 65 and re-sends it over the communications line 187 to IPE 78.

It should be noted that OPE 64 provides packet sequence numbers to all packets provided to IPE 78. Since all packets must be received in order, IPE 78 recognizes missing packets when a sequence number is missed. In such a case, IPE 78 could communicate the NACK command to OPE 77. OPE 77 would then communicate that information to IPE 62, which communicates it to OPE 64. OPE 64 can then simply request and collect all information that has been queued by FIFO 65 for re-sending since the only packets that are not queued in FIFO 65 are those that have been acknowledged previously. In other words, when FIFO 65 sends packet sequence number 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 to OPE 64 and IPE 78 successfully receives packets 3 and 4, it communicates acknowledgments for 3 and 4 to OPE 77 which communicates those acknowledgments through IPE 62 back to FIFO 65. Upon receiving acknowledgments for the packet sequences 3 and 4, FIFO 65 clears its buffers of the packet information for packets 3 and 4. Suppose then on the packet sequence 5, IPE 78 encounters a full FIFO 76. IPE 78 then communicates the NACK to OPE 77, which communicates it to IPE 62 and thereupon to OPE 64. The NACK command could, but need not, contain the sequence number for the problem packet since the OPE 64 and FIFO 65 know that the last packet successfully completed (and acknowledged) was packet number 4. Thus, FIFO 65 will re-send packets 5, 6, and 7 to OPE 64 and IPE 78 in response to the NACK request.

Preferably, IPE 78 issues NACKs on a very limited basis in order to maintain stability in the system and to avoid getting the system into a loop. Thus, in the preferred embodiment of the present invention, IPE 78 issues NACKs to OPE 77 only when a valid packet is received but cannot be filled into FIFO 76 because there is no room in FIFO 76 or the packets arrive out-of-order. Bad packets to IPE 78 are not NACK'ed by IPE 78, but instead are resent by FIFO 65 when a time out condition occurs between the time FIFO 65 sends a packet and a failure of FIFO 65 to receive an acknowledgment for that packet. Alternative arrangements can be envisioned for NACK production, but providing NACKs only for the full FIFO 76 or out-of-order conditions is preferred.

One can see from reviewing FIG. 8 that FIFO 75 operates similarly to that described above with respect to FIFO 65, except in the reverse direction (i.e., from bridge 25 to bridge 24). Similarly, FIFO 61 operates similarly to FIFO 76. In essence, communications between buses 20 and 21 occurs as follows: for communications from bus 20 to bus 21, bus 20 communicates with bridge 24 via a bus protocol, bridge 24 communicates with Target controller 66 via a bus protocol, Target controller 66 loads the data into FIFO 65, FIFO 65 provides the data to OPE 64, and OPE 64 puts the data onto the communications line 187. IPE 78 then takes the data from the communications line 187, provides it to FIFO 76, which provides it to Master controller 74, which communicates it via standard bus communication to bridge 25. Bridge 25 provides communication to bus 21. On the reverse path, communications occur from bus 21 to bridge 25, to target controller 73, to FIFO 75, to OPE 77, to communications line 187, to IPE 62, to FIFO 61, to master controller 60, to bridge 24, and to bus 20.

One can see from the above description and Figures that FIG. 8 can be extended into the application of FIG. 6 to provide a long distance communication protocol for the split computer paradigm. The application of FIG. 8 into the split computer paradigm is illustrated in more detail in FIG. 9. In FIG. 9, the system consists of two boards, namely an add-in card at the host computer site 186 and a terminal motherboard at the remote terminal site 188. The add-in card plugs into one of a host computer's bus slots and connects to the terminal via communications line 187. As shown in FIG. 9, the host card and the terminal motherboard have the same basic hardware, but the terminal motherboard also includes various terminal devices 88 on its bus. Namely, at the host site, a host PC communicates with a bridge 24. The bridge 24 communicates with a target controller 87, which communicates with physical layer controller 86 to provide packets onto the communications line 187. On the terminal side, physical layer controller 85 receive packets from the communications line 187, communicate them to master controller 84, which communicates them to bridge 25. On the return path, bridge 25 communicates data to target controller 83, which communicates the information to physical layer controller 82, which communicates them in packet form onto the communications line 187. Physical layer controller 81 on the host side retrieves the packets from the communications line 187 and communicates them to master controller 80, which communicates them to bridge 24. Again, physical layer controllers 81 and 86 may be combined into a single chip, as may physical layer controllers 82 and 85.

A physical layout of the embodiment shown in FIG. 9 is also shown in FIG. 23. In FIG. 23, the host side 70 includes a PC with an add-in card 181. The card includes the components shown on the host side of FIG. 9. In addition, the card 181 is jumpered to PS/2 ports in order to provide sideband signaling in accordance with the embodiment of FIG. 22, which will be described in more detail following. Add-in card 181 is connected via the communications line 187 to terminal 71 at the terminal 71 motherboard 183. Terminal 71 may also include add-in cards 182 associated with various add-on devices. Terminal 71 also includes USB port 184 to which keyboard, mouse, and other similar types of devices are connected.

The network protocol in accordance with the present embodiment is described with respect to FIG. 10. In FIG. 10, the network devices are described in terms of layers, with each layer performing an operation on a chunk of data and then passing the product up or down to the next layer. In FIG. 10, the top layer accepts bus transactions from the host PC 70 or terminal device 71 and the bottom layer communicates over the communications line 187. In other words, in accordance with FIG. 10, data is said to flow into the top side of one stack, down to the bottom of that stack, across the twisted pair cable, up the other stack and out the top of the other stack.

As shown in FIG. 10, on the PCI transaction side, host PC side 100 includes network layer 102, network-to-DLL interface layer 104, data link layer 105, DLL-to-physical interface 106, physical layer 107, and the communications line 187. On the terminal side 101, network layer 103 communicates with network-to-DLL interface layer 111, which communicates with data link layer 110, which communicates with DLL-to-physical interface layer 109, which communicates with physical layer 108, which communicates with the communications line 187. One will note that the layers in stacks 100 and 101 are symmetric, and although data changes form as it ascends and descends a stack, it will be returned to a functionally equivalent form as it goes to the same level on the other stack. In other words, a given layer deals with the same “packet” regardless of which stack it is in. Since the lower layers remain transparent, this allows the present invention to assume that layers are “talking” over virtual communication paths. Thus, for example, network layer 102, while not directly connected physically to network layer 103, is communicating via a virtual channel to it. The same is true of data link layers 105 and 110.

Since network layer 102 and network layer 103 correspond with, for example, bridge 24 and bridge 25 of FIG. 8, the illustration of FIG. 10 indicates that bridge 24 and bridge 25 are essentially speaking directly with one another through a virtual channel even though there are many components therebetween.

Similarly, the dotted line relationship between data link layer 105 on the host side 100 and data link layer 110 on the terminal side 101 indicates that the data link layer on the add-in card on the host side 100 is, in essence, talking virtually to the DLL 110 on the terminal side, even though there are actually other layers in between.

The following is a discussion of the operation of each of the layers shown in FIG. 10. Beginning with the network layers 102/103, these layers can be embodied in a traditional bridge, such as a bridge following the DEC 21152 PCI-to-PCI bridge specification. Definitions applicable to the network layer include:

-   -   Host Network Layer: the bridge on the add-in card placed in the         host PC.     -   Terminal Network Layer: the bridge on the terminal main         motherboard.     -   Initiating Bridge: the bridge that starts the transaction, which         can be either the host or terminal network layer.     -   Target Bridge The bridge that is recipient of a transaction         started by an initiating bridge.

The network-to-DLL interface logic layers 104/111 are located within the first and second communications controllers 26 and 27. The network to DLL logic layers 104/111 transform bus transactions into actions that can be processed by the data link layer. These actions are then matched up and re-ordered if necessary to complete the transactions on the other side. An example embodiment of this interface is shown in FIG. 11. The bridge 102 may communicate with the network-to-DLL interface logic layer 112 (e.g., embodied as an FPGA (or portion thereof)). Communication between the network layer 102 and network-to-DLL logic layer 112 is bidirectional. That is, there is full duplex communication with the DLL 113, as shown in FIG. 11, but only multiplexed communication with the network layer 102. It is important to note that the network to DLL interface logic layer and underline layers are completely transparent. They have no bus configuration registers, nor do they have access to those of higher layers.

The data link layers 105/110 act like a wrapper for the physical interface logic layer 106/109. In essence, they provide error-free communication and ensure that all packets arrive in order. Additionally, the DLL does some prioritization of packets (bus versus non-bus, for example). An example DLL layer is shown in FIG. 12. Such network to DLL interface logic layers 114/117 of, respectively, the host side 100 and terminal side 101, can be embodied in FPGAs. The data link layers 115 and 118 also can be embodied in FPGAs and provide interfaces to the physical layers 116 and 119.

The DLL must deal with lost or damaged packets. If one assumes that the Bit Error Rate (BERR) of the physical layer and medium is very low and that garbled packets will be rare, the goal of the DLL is then to make the information rate high while still guaranteeing error recovery. Definitions applicable to the data link layer include:

-   -   Host DLL: the portion of the circuitry implementing the DLL on         the add-in card used in the host machine.     -   Terminal DLL: the portion of the circuitry implementing the data         link layer on the terminal main motherboard.     -   Initiating DLL: the DLL that starts a transaction by sending the         request action, and can be either the host or terminal DLL.     -   Target DLL: the DLL that receives a transaction by receiving the         request action.     -   DLL Channel: the virtual data path between corresponding host         and terminal DLLs.     -   Sending DLL: the DLL that sends the data packet needing an         acknowledgment.     -   Receiving DLL: the DLL that receives the data packet and is         responsible for returning an ACK.     -   CRC: Cyclic Redundancy Check: In accordance with the preferred         embodiment of the present invention, a 16 bit CRC is used with         the following arbitrary polynomial: X¹⁶+X¹⁵+X²+1.

The DLL-to-physical interface logic layers 106/109 consist of de-skewing circuitry, specifically and an integrated elastic buffer. The integrated elastic buffer internally may be implemented as elastic buffers 140 and 141 and a combiner module 142 or any other configuration which allows an equivalent control. An example of such an interface is shown in FIG. 15 in which physical layer controller 107 is shown interconnected to DLL 105. Specifically, physical layer controller 107 communicates with DLL 105 through the integrated elastic buffer. In an embodiment with two bridges (e.g., 24 and 25), the elastic buffers 140 and 141 are basically 16 entry deep FIFOs and some logic that compresses strings of idles down into a single idle in a string of stalls. Stalls are not stored in the FIFOs. The combiner 142 keeps the elastic buffers in synch by making sure the same type of data is being pulled from each. If the types stop matching (perhaps an idle cell in one and the data cell in the other), then the combiner stops accepting data until it can flush the elastic buffers and be sure that the two byte channels are back in synch. This takes a string of a least 16 idle cells. To be sure that the combiner 142 is always in synch after a re-scan, a data stream may be padded with 16 idles in the case of the re-scan. (In an embodiment in which the two bridges 24 and 25 are combined into a single bridge which is split into two halves (as described in greater detail below), it is not necessary to keep separate channels in synchronization since a single channel is used instead.)

The physical layers 107 and 108 will have different embodiments depending on the different types of physical transmission media desired. For twisted pairs, a physical layer interface controller from Cypress Semiconductor, Broadcom or other suitable manufacturers may be used.

The network-to-DLL interfaces 104 and 111 are shown in more detail with respect to FIG. 13. The components that are involved in a communication in FIG. 13 vary depending on whether the communication is a one-action or two-action transaction. As described earlier, posted memory writes are considered completed by the initiator as soon as they are accepted, even if the data has not yet reached the target. Having completed a posted write (PW) transaction, the initiator can go on with other business and trust that any bridges between the initiator and the target will repeat and re-try the transaction as necessary until completion occurs down the line. A PW instruction from the host side to the terminal side in FIG. 13 will implicate host network layer 102, target state machine 127, outgoing action storage 126, incoming action storage 125, master state machine 124 and terminal network layer 103. In other words, communications 1, 2, 3, and 4 in FIG. 13 are involved in a one action transaction from the host side to the terminal side.

Non-posted commands (for example, reads, I/O writes, and configuration writes) are not considered completed by the initiator until after they have been accepted by the target. With very few exceptions, once an initiator attempts a non-posted command (NPC), it must continue to re-try it until it is accepted. If there are any bridges between the initiator and the target, they also adhere to the same rules. When they receive an NPC on one bus, they must defer the transaction with a re-try until they can get the NPC to complete on their other bus in what is known as a “delayed transaction.” In the delayed transaction scenario from host to terminal of FIG. 13, all components 120-127 and all communication links 1-7 shown in FIG. 13 are implicated.

It should be noted that while the preferred embodiment is described with respect to PCI protocols, the present invention finds application outside of the PCI protocol environment. Thus, the one action and two-action transactions described herein are intended to reflect generic situations, not necessarily limited to the PCI or any other protocol.

In FIG. 13, during a two-action transaction, the request action provided from host network layer 102 (intended for terminal network 103, for example), is formed from data which is latched during a re-try. That way, there is no data transfer, and the transaction will not complete until a response action returns. A pending bit set in the network to the DLL interface logic 104/111 causes all NPCs to be retried. Further, in one embodiment, no new NPC request action will be formed while the pending bit is set. Alternatively, multiple (e.g., 4) non-posted commands can be kept track of in an alternate embodiment. Once the response is received, the network to DLL interface logic 104/111 waits for the NPC to be retried. Non-posted writes are then accepted or data previously read is returned.

As shown in FIG. 13, all request and response actions are stored in incoming and outgoing action storage devices 121 and 126 on the host side and 122 and 125 on the terminal side. For each side, there are two main FIFOs, one for outgoing requests/responses (actions queued to be sent over the communications line 187) and one for incoming requests/responses (actions received from the communications line 187). As described above, these FIFOs are not traditional, but provide additional functionality not typically found in FIFOs, as discussed in detail above. As also shown in FIG. 13, there are two state machines 120 and 127 associated with the interface that play a primary role in the interface's operation. The target state machine acts as the target of a bus transaction, initiated by a bridge (for example, 102). The target state machine captures transaction data necessary to repeat the transaction on the other side. This information is encapsulated in a request action stored in the out FIFO 126. The master state machine takes request actions from the in FIFO 121 and (acting on behalf of the original master) attempts the request action to the target bridge 102.

For read requests, there is a little overlapping responsibility between the target and master state machines. As with write requests, read requests are repeated by the master state machine. The target bridge will then return data for the read request. For technical reasons, the returned data is formed into a response action by the target state machine. Likewise, when the response is received on the initiating side of the link, the transaction is still handled by the target state machine, but the data is provided by the master.

In other words, there is a division between data and control in the embodiment of FIG. 13. The target state machine 127 accepts transactions as if it were the target of all bus transactions and the master state machine 120 repeats transactions as if it were the original master of that transaction. In FIG. 8, Target controller 66 (the circuitry that contains the target state machine) sends data over the network and the Master controller 60 (the circuitry containing the master state machine) provides that data for transactions on the other side. A similar situation occurs as between target controller 73 and master controller 74 on the terminal side of 58.

Referring again to FIG. 13, a one action example embodiment is described, such as a memory write transaction. First, a memory write transaction is issued by the host network layer (initiating bridge), for example 102. The associated target state machine 127 then stores a request action consisting of the address, command, byte enables, and data from the bridge 102 into the out FIFO 126. At this point, the bridge and target state machine consider the transaction completed. The master state machine 124 receives the request action from the in FIFO 125 and transfers the write requests to the terminal network layer 103 (target bridge). This completes the transaction on the terminal side.

Now, the two action example embodiment will be described with respect to FIG. 13. First, a non-posted bus transaction (one that requires a two-action DLL transaction) is initiated by the host network layer 102 (initiating bridge). The target state machine 127 stores a request action in the out FIFO 126 consisting of the address, command, byte enables, and data (for writes). The master state machine 124 receives the request from the in FIFO 125. The request is converted into a bus transaction on the terminal network layer 103 (target bridge) by the master state machine 124. In the case of a read, the target state machine 123 collects the data and places it in the terminal's out FIFO 122. The state machine receives the response action from the in FIFO 121. When the NPC is next retried by the host network layer 102 to target machine 127, the master state machine 120 then sends the return status (and any collected data) as a response action to host network layer 102. The transaction is completed by the data being provided by the master state machine to the host layer 102.

As shown in FIG. 11, the network to DLL interface layer 112 must share the multiplex channel connecting it to the network layer 102 (also known as the local bus). The arbitration for this multiplex channel is done in the master controller 60 (FIG. 8). In the preferred embodiment, the arbitration is fair in that both masters (Master controller 60 and bridge 24) are given the same priority for the channel therebetween. The arbiter essentially leaves the bus parked on the last agent to request the bus. Arbitration in the layer 112 is hidden in that the arbiter runs independently of the bus and one agent can be granted the bus while it is being used by the other. If both agents require the bus, the arbiter will alternate the grants so that each master (Master controller 60 and bridge 24) can perform one transaction before relinquishing the bus. Other alternative arbitration methods are also envisioned in the present invention.

The PCI bridge specification requires PCI bridges to complete transactions according to certain rules, including:

-   -   1. System behavior is not affected by whether or not there are         bridges between the PCI transactions master and target;     -   2. Starvation is minimized; and     -   3. Deadlock is prevented.

For the most part, rules such as these are handled by the bridges 24 and 25 on the add-in board and terminal motherboard (FIG. 9). There are, however, a few ordering rules that affect what the circuitry 80, 87, 83, and 84 (FIG. 9) can and cannot do. Specifically:

-   -   1. Posted write transactions must complete on the target bus in         the order in which they are accepted on the initiator bus;     -   2. NPC requests may not pass posted writes. In other words, if a         posted write is accepted before an NPC, the posted write must         complete on the target bus before the NPC can even be attempted;     -   3. NPC responses may not pass posted writes. All posted writes         accepted before an NPC is completed must complete on their         target bus before the response may be used; and     -   4. Posted write transactions must be given opportunities to pass         NPC requests and responses.

To ensure that these rules are met, the following design considerations may be used:

-   -   1. No actions in the out FIFO (65 in FIG. 8) are allowed to pass         another action. Each action must be sent in the order they are         queued, without reordering.     -   2. The DLL 115 must guarantee that all actions queued in the out         FIFO 65 will be transmitted and queued in the in FIFO 76 in         order. The DLL may not reorder transactions.     -   3. The in FIFO 76 will allow posted writes and NPC responses to         pass NPC requests, but will not do any other reordering.

A careful review of the above design decisions indicates that rule #4 above is only partially enforced. Posted writes are allowed to pass NPC requests, but not NPC responses. Allowing posted writes to pass NPC requests prevents deadlock situations when a newer generation PCI compliant bridge is placed between two earlier generation PCI bridges.

It should be noted that some PCI data may be pre-fetched and some may not. Likewise, some data may be discarded while others may not. Specifically:

-   -   1. Under normal circumstances, write data may never be         discarded. In the case of a target abort, the system can discard         the remainder of the posted write.     -   2. PCI configuration reads, PC I/O reads, and PCI memory reads         from non-pre-fetchable memory spaces may not be pre-fetched. PCI         compliant bridges must read only the locations requested (with         byte enables given) and no more.     -   3. Data read by PCI configuration reads, PCI configuration         reads, PCI I/O reads and PCI memory reads from non-pre-fetchable         memory spaces may never be discarded.     -   4. PCI memory reads from pre-fetchable memo spaces may be         pre-fetched.     -   5. The first location fetched from any PCI memory read may not         be discarded, but any pre-fetched data beyond that may be.

The system will discard pre-fetched data in two cases:

-   -   1. The master state machine may fetch more data than it will         have room to queue in the out FIFO.     -   2. The initiator may end the transaction before consuming all         the pre-fetched data.

In other words, if the target of a posted write disconnects the transaction, the master state machine must start another transaction from where the last posted write left off. It cannot “give up” until all the data has been accepted. However, if a PCI master ends a read transaction, orphaning some data, that data is discarded as long as at least one piece was used.

The bridges in the preferred embodiment enforce the pre-fetching rules by disconnecting transactions in non-pre-fetchable space after the first data transfer.

One can see from the above pre-fetching and discarding rules that in essence, the system allows only one normal discarding situation in which a first bridge sends, for example, 8 bytes of data and the second bridge wants only 4 of the 8. In such a case, the latter 4 bytes can be discarded provided the second bridge accepts 4 words in the read operation. For writes, if a target indicates that it wishes only 50% of the write, then the system will start the transaction midpoint and resend until the target takes the entire packet a piece at a time.

The types and flow of data within the systems described above will now be described with respect to FIGS. 14 and 16 through 21.

FIG. 14 illustrates an example embodiment of a data link layer 105/110. In FIG. 14, physical layer interface 106A and 106B provide incoming and outgoing data from the communications line 187. Packets coming into the DLL are received by assembler 131, which communicates with in FIFO 130. In FIFO 130 buffers packets to master state machine 120 (see also FIG. 13). Intelligence for the input side is provided by director 132, which provides a liaison to the output side and provides interrupts, general purpose I/Os and sideband signals. The assembler and director can in one embodiment, make up the IPE 62. Director 132 communicates on the output side of FIG. 14. Outgoing packets are received by out FIFO 136 from target state machine 127 and are provided to the OPE 137 for ultimate provision to the physical interface layer 106B. Incoming interrupts, GP I/Os, and Serrs are provided to a virtual wires element 133, which prioritizes messages and delivers them to Outstanding Queue 134. The Outstanding Queue 134 is another FIFO that maintains an index to packets in the out FIFO 136 that have not yet been acknowledged.

As an example of the operation of FIG. 14, consider a packet that arrives at assembler 131 (IPE) from physical interface layer 106A. Assembler 131 attempts to deliver the packet to in FIFO 130, but in FIFO 130 is full and thus cannot receive the packet. Assembler 131 then informs director 132 that in FIFO 130 is full. Director 132 tells the OPE 137 to generate a NACK signal to be put onto the physical interface layer 106B. FIG. 14 is repeated in mirror image on the terminal side such that OPE 137 is communicating the NACK to an assembler corresponding to assembler 131, on the terminal side. That assembler communicates the received NACK signal to the terminal-side director (corresponding to 132), which coordinates the retransmission of all outstanding queue (corresponding to 134) packets through the terminal-side OPE (corresponding to 137) to the host-side assembler 131.

Further operations of the data link layer will be described with respect to the packets and control of packets. Essentially, two types of packets proceed through the data link layer, data packets and acknowledgment packets. Data packets are either request actions or response actions and acknowledgment packets are either positive (ACK) or negative (NACK). Both types of packets end with a CRC transmission for error testing and any packet that fails CRC validation is ignored. No NACKs be sent in response to a failed CRC.

All transmitted data packets are kept in local memory until they are ACK-ed, in case retransmission is necessary, as described earlier. The two things that can precipitate a retransmission are the receipt of a NACK or a time out occurrence while waiting for an ACK. The time out period is arbitrary, but can be set at, for example, 255 clock cycles. Time outs should be repetitive that so packets will be retransmitted every 255 clocks until ACK-ed.

All data packets have a sequence number associated with them. Packets will only be accepted in the order of their sequence numbers. Acknowledgment packets are handled separately from data packets and are given a higher priority than data packets. A one action transaction includes one request and one acknowledgment while a two action transaction includes one request action within an acknowledgment and one response action with an acknowledgment.

The system pipelines packets (without any idle tokens therebetween) to maximize bandwidth. Likewise, ACKs can be combined to acknowledge a series of packets. For example, since all packets will only be accepted when they are received in order, an acknowledgment that packet number 7 in a sequence has been received implies that all packets prior to packet number 7 have also been received. Thus, if packets 4-5-6-7 are received in a burst, acknowledging packet 7 will acknowledge that all of the packets 4-7 were received.

If a packet in the middle of a pipeline stream is damaged in transmission, it and all packets that follow it will have to be retransmitted. Although a different method is certainly envisioned within the scope of the present invention, in the preferred embodiment, the receiving DLL will not store packets out of order. Thus, the DLL is never allowed to give up on transmitting a packet nor is a receiving DLL allowed to give up on a transmitted packet. Each packet will be retransmitted until it is ACKed or the system is reset.

If the receiving DLL receives a packet correctly and transmits an ACK, but the ACK is corrupted by noise, the sending DLL will eventually re-transmit the original data packet. The retransmitted data packet then arrives at the receiving DLL out-of-order because the receiving DLL was expecting the next packet sequence number (believing that it already acknowledged the retransmitted packet). This situation is referred to as being “behind” because the incoming sequence number is behind the one expected. In this case, the receiving DLL will discard the packet (since it has already dealt with it in the original transmission) and will repeat the original ACK to the sending DLL.

The opposite of that situation is the situation where the packets get “ahead.” In that case, several packets have been pipelined, but one in the middle gets corrupted. The corrupted packet is ignored but the packet that follows it has a valid CRC. The following data packet is out-of-order because the receiving DLL has not yet processed the corrupted packet. In this case, the receiving DLL can transmit a NACK to trigger a retransmission of the missing packet and will thus save the delay time associated with waiting for a time out.

Ahead and behind conditions are determined by comparing incoming sequence numbers against an expected sequence number counter. Thus, there is no need for the sequence numbers on each side of the network to be kept in synch, but can be entirely independent of each other.

The ACKs and NACKs are high priority messages, with ACK having the highest priority and NACK having the second highest priority of all packets. Acknowledgment packets are injected between packets on the transmit side as soon as possible and are dealt with on the receive side as soon as their CRCs are verified. A sequence number is sent with an ACK to indicate which packet is being acknowledged. This number is actually taken from the sequence number counter and not from the received packet. This allows the DLL to acknowledge multiple packets at once. It also eliminates the concern of an ACK sequence number that is “behind.”

NACKs, unlike ACKs, are not actually a necessary element. If any packet (data or ACK) is corrupted, the retransmit timer will eventually cause all queued packets to be retransmitted. The NACK provision simply makes the system faster by causing the retransmission to happen earlier than the time out occurrence would otherwise allow. NACKs, however, can lead to instability. For this reason, the rules associated with NACKs discussed previously cause their use to be limited to narrow occurrences. For example, the protocol of the preferred embodiment will never send two NACKs in a row for any reason, in order to avoid loops. Instead, if a second NACK is otherwise conditioned, the protocol will allow the time out condition to occur instead of sending the second NACK. To accomplish this, if a DLL sends a NACK, it will disable the NACK circuitry until a valid packet is received in order, whereupon it will again re-enable the NACK circuitry.

ACK and NACK generation are described with respect to FIG. 16. There, a packet is received at step 150 and is tested at step 151 to determine whether its CRC passes. If the CRC passes, the packet is uncorrupted and the sequence number of the packet is compared to the expected sequence number from the expected sequence number counter 152. If the numbers match, the in FIFO 130 will be analyzed to determine whether it can accept the new packet, at step 153. If the FIFO 130 is full, the system will look to send a NACK with respect to the received packet. First, at step 156, however, the system determines whether a NACK was previously sent at step 156. That is, once a NACK is sent, a packet must be successfully received before another NACK will be sent. Thus, in step 157, when a NACK is sent, the NACK circuitry is disabled, and, if the next packet would overflow the FIFO at 153 as well, the NACK circuitry will be disabled at step 156. If, on the other hand, this is a non-sequential occurrence of FIFO overflow at step 153, the NACKs will be enabled at step 155, a NACK will be sent at step 157, and then the NACK circuitry will be disabled for the next packet 150. If the FIFO is available to take the packet, however, the NACK circuitry is re-enabled at 155, the expected sequence counter is incremented at step 155 and an acknowledgment is sent at step 154. Note that, at step 152, if the sequence number comparison indicates that a behind condition exists, the acknowledgment will immediately be sent at step 154.

ACK packets are expected to arrive in order, but it is possible for ACKs to be in an ahead condition. If this occurs, the ACK that is received ahead acknowledges the reference packet and all packets before it. If a NACK packet is received, all unacknowledged packets are retransmitted in order. In addition, all unacknowledged packets are retransmitted in order when the retransmit timer times out. Re-transmissions begin by transmitting a group of idles to give the receiving logic a chance to reset.

The virtual wires element 133 (FIG. 14) is responsible for prioritizing packets, except for ACK and NACK packets. An exemplary prioritization is: Serr (highest priority), Interrupts, General Purpose I/Os, and requests/responses (lowest priority). Prioritization of ACKs and NACKs may be: ACKs (highest priority), NACKs, and actions (lowest priority). The virtual wires may also be used to control operating parameters (e.g., power cycling and discard time) and to sense internal operating conditions (e.g., internal voltage, state of pushbuttons or hot-keys, PCI reset and remote power control).

Although the present invention is not so limited, example data cells in a PCI-based embodiment are shown in FIGS. 17-19. Packets may be of variable length, consisting of two or more cells. Each packet begins with a header cell and ends with a CRC cell. In the preferred embodiment, only requests and response packets have more cells than just the header cell and CRC cell. In FIGS. 17-19, unlabeled bits are reserved. It should be noted that the embodiments of FIGS. 17-19 are provided by way of example and the specifics of the cell formats is not critical to the present invention.

In FIG. 17, the header cells are shown for an exemplary PCI-based embodiment that is not IP compatible. The Inputs Rq and Serr Rq headers are associated with sideband signals which will be described with respect to FIGS. 22-23. Next, PCI request (PCI Rq) and PCI response (PCI Rs), cells are shown. As shown, the PCI request cell will have a command associated with it. As described earlier, the PCI request cell is associated with one action and two action transactions and the PCI response cell is associated only with the two action transaction. The general purpose I/O request cell are sideband signals similar to ones used as described with respect to FIG. 22 to get commands to a terminal without going through the PCI interface at the terminal. Also shown in FIG. 17 are the reset, ACK and NACK cells. The reset cell happens on power up and resets all of the PCI devices, the sequence numbers, the registers and clears out the FIFOS. The ACK cell includes the sequence number of the packet being acknowledged. The NACK cell does not include a sequence number but instead precipitates a complete retransmission of all unacknowledged cells currently held in queue at the transmitter. The list of unacknowledged transmissions is maintained in Outstanding Queue 134.

Data cells are shown in FIG. 18 for an exemplary PCI-based embodiment that is not IP compatible, including the byte enable cell, high data and low data cells. The high data and low data cells are assembled in the assembler 131.

FIG. 19 illustrates certain other miscellaneous cells for an exemplary PCI-based embodiment that is not IP compatible. The special flags cell can be set to one of two conditions, master abort or target abort. The master abort indicates that no PCI card was found in a PCI slot. A target abort indicates a massive failure. The CRC cell concludes each packet, as described previously. The stall cell is used to fill time while the sender is waiting to send additional data.

In one embodiment, outgoing packets operate in a pass-through mode. In another embodiment, a store-and-forward mode is used. This means that the system in pass-through mode cannot force the master to send data at any rate other than what the master wishes to send it at. Thus, if the master sends a burst of data and then waits for a period, the FIFO could run dry during the wait period. That the FIFO should not receive an idle within a packet 30 when a packet portion is delayed. The present invention provides stalls to fill the wait period.

In FIG. 19, the next cell, “Completed” indicates the last data in a response. The “Special Ending” cell indicates that a Special Flag cell will follow. Finally, the “idle” cell is sent between packets.

FIG. 21 illustrates a flow diagram of the assembly of PCI request packets for an exemplary PCI-based embodiment that is not IP compatible. PCI requests, as shown in FIG. 17 are composed of a header cell, a PCI address (high data cell, low data cell), one or more data blocks, and then a CRC cell. Each data block includes one byte enable cell and a piece of PCI data (high data cell, low data cell). Even PCI requests that do not actually have data (such as reads) have one whole data block. At step 170, the PCI request header is composed and at steps 171-172, the high and low data are added. If that is the last data block at step 173, the CRC is added at step 174. If not, at step 175 the master is checked to determine whether more data is ready. If not, the stall cell of FIG. 19 is added at step 176 until more data is ready. If so, the byte enable cell of FIG. 18 is added at step 177 and flow returns to adding the additional high and low data of the available data at step 171-172.

FIG. 20 illustrates the assembly of PCI response packets for an exemplary PCI-based embodiment that is not IP compatible. PCI responses are composed of the header cell, zero or more pieces of PCI data (high data cell, low data cell), an ending block, and then a CRC cell. The ending block will be either a special ending cell followed by a special flag cell or a completed cell, of FIG. 19. In FIG. 20, the PCI response header is added at step 158. If more data is coming at step 159 and is ready at step 160, it is added at steps 161 and 162. Flow then returns back to an inquiry whether additional data is coming at step 159. If more data is coming at step 159 but is not yet ready at step 160, stall cells (FIG. 19) are added at step 163. If no additional data is coming at step 159, and the data is non-special at step 164, the completed cell is returned at step 168 and then the CRC cell is added at step 167. On the other hand, if the ending is special, the special ending is added at step 165 based on the special ending cell of FIG. 19 and then the special flags are added at step 166 based on the special flag cell of FIG. 19. After the special flags cell is added at step 166, the CRC cell is added at step 167.

Supplementing FIGS. 20 and 21, all other kinds of packets not described in FIGS. 20 and 21 are assembled simply by assembling a header cell with a CRC into a two word packet.

Since the physical layer interface accepts and transmits a stream of cells without any regard to meaning or structure, it is up to the DLL to create and recognize frame boundaries. The DLL decodes packets as they are received. All packet types are detectable by decoding the header cell. Rules for framing are as follows:

-   -   1. Two word packets are framed by their length;     -   2. PCI request packets are framed by looking for L=1 in a byte         enable cell; and     -   3. PCI responses are framed by the special cells, completed in         special ending.

Corrupted data could cause the frame logic to get confused. If the combiner 142 (FIG. 15) of the assembler 131 determines it has lost synch, it will stop accepting data until it can flush the elastic buffers 140-141 and be sure that the two byte channels are back in synch. This is usually done with a string of 16 idle cells. To be sure that the combiner 142 is always in synch after a re-scan, the data stream may be padded with 16 idles (FIG. 19) in the case of a re-scan. In accordance with the preferred protocol, idles do not appear within a packet since receiving an idle will reset the packet assembler 131.

In accordance with the preferred protocol, packets are sent using cut-through switching, as opposed to store-and-forward. Alternative protocols are also envisioned within the present invention, including the store-and-forward method in which the state machine does not begin transmitting a packet until the entire packet has been received. In the preferred protocol, packets begin transmitting as soon as possible in accordance with cut-through switching. Although cut-through switching is more complicated, it is more efficient than store-and-forward since there is less latency between receipt and transmission. In other words, it is possible for the OPE 137 to run the out FIFO dry by underflow. If this happens, the OPE 137 will insert the stall cells (FIG. 19), which will then be stripped out in the elastic buffers 140 and 141 when the stalls are received.

Referring now to FIG. 22, the description of the transmission of keyboard and mouse signals from the terminal side of the present invention to the host side of the present invention will now be described in accordance with the preferred embodiment. Keyboards and mice sometimes follow the so-called PS/2 standard for data transmission. Unfortunately, the PS/2 transmission does not use PCI messaging and thus cannot go onto the PCI bus 21 in the PS/2 format. One could use a USB card in the PCI slot and then hang the keyboard and mouse 178 and 179 off of the USB card in order to get the keyboard and mouse PS/2 signals onto the PCI bus 21. Alternatively, in accordance with the preferred embodiment, the keyboard and mouse 178 and 179 bypass the PCI bus 21 using sideband signals 180. “Sideband” signals refer to signals that bypass the PCI bus and go directly into the second first communications controller 27. It should be noted that any peripherals that do not follow the PCI standard (or other alternative data bus standard for bus 21) can be maintained in the split computer paradigm using this sideband signal approach shown in FIG. 22. In the embodiment of FIG. 22, keyboard and mouse signals from keyboard and mouse 178 and 179 are provided by sideband 180 to the second communications controller 27, where they are transmitted outside the main data flow to the first communications controller 26. The first communications controller 26 then provides them to CPU 70 via sidebands such that CPU 70 receives the keyboard and mouse signals directly from the first first communications controller 26.

As an alternative to the packet formats of FIGS. 17-21, packets in an IP-compatible format can be used. For example, the bus transaction information can be placed directly in an IP payload so that IP-based routers can be placed in between the first and second communications controllers 26 and 27. Alternatively, the bus transaction information can be included in a payload above the IP layer. For example, the bus transaction information could be stored in a UDP payload, in a TCP payload or in a payload of any other reliable or unreliable datagram protocol. When using a TCP payload, the TCP stack could be reduced in complexity because the reliable transmission process (using time-outs, retransmissions and ACKs (as well as NACKs, if desired)) has already been taken care of in a lower level, as described above. Alternatively, the reliable transmission process described above could be replaced with a standard TCP-based implementation.

By using a packet-switching protocol, a host and a terminal can be separated by more than one physical cable. Moreover, the route between the first and second communications controllers 26 and 27 can change or be changed via dynamic IP-based routing as long as the routing is made sufficiently fast to adhere to the bus timing constraints. Alternatively, the routers between the first and second communications controllers 26 and 27 can be set statically.

Moreover, as described above, the communications line 187 can be any of a number of physical media, such a twisted pair or optical fiber. Given that routers can be placed in between the first and second communications controllers 26 and 27, the two communications controllers need not even communicate with the same type of communications line 187. For example, the first communications controller 26 may connect to a twisted pair, and the second communications controller may connect to a token-ring system. Alternatively, the first and second communications controllers 26 and 27 may also be connected by ATM-based routers and connections. Packets sent over such ATM-based connections can be IP or any other packet-switched format. In one such embodiment, a set of static ATM-based routes can be established between the host and terminal for improved speed and latency. Moreover, bandwidth allocations can be made to the connection between the first and second communications controllers 26 and 27 to ensure timely delivery of packets between the first and second communications controllers 26 and 27.

As shown in FIG. 25, another advantage to the use of an IP-compatible communications format is that a remote administrator 250 can connect over a communications line 186 and configure either the terminal side 288 or host side 286, without requiring physical access to either device. For example, the remote administrator 250 can connect to the terminal side 288 and, using a well-known port number or a message type indicator, specify that a configuration controller 275 is to be addressed. The configuration controller 275 is illustrated as being connected (via the solid line) to the communications controller 26 on a separate bus from the bridge 27. However, it should be understood that the configuration controller 275, in this embodiment and in all other embodiments herein, may instead or in addition be connected (via the dashed line) to the same bus as the bridge 27 (or the bridge 24 in the case of a host side 286).

The remote administrator may then specify any of a number of configuration tasks that should be accomplished. For example, a message or messages from remote administrator 250 may cause the configuration controller 275 to be programmed with which terminal-side 288 is to be coupled to which host-side 286. This may happen at initial configuration time or it may occur as part of a reconfiguration. For example, if a first user is out sick and a second user needs access to the first user's computer, rather than having the second user sit at the first user's desk, a remote administrator can reconfigure the first user's host side to talk to the second user's terminal side, without having to have physical access to those devices. By using IP-compatible messaging, this can occur from down the hall or from across the world.

Similarly, the configuration controller may be programmed with changes in firmware or, in the case of reconfigurable circuits such as FPGAs, changes in hardware. The firmware and hardware changes may be sent as either all one message or may be sent in separate blocks that can be reprogrammed independently.

The remote administrator 250 may also receive information back from either of the host and terminal sides in order to perform remote diagnostics. For example, the remote administrator 250 may read out, from a terminal side, the IP address or network address of the host side to which it is to be coupled. This would allow the remote administrator 250 to “ping” the host side to see if it was alive if a user was having trouble. The remote administrator may even reset one or both of the sides remotely in the case of an error.

The remote administrator 250 may also use information on the pairings to configure the network 290. For example, the remote administrator may configure routers with static routes in the network 290 between the terminal and host sides to provide reduced processing times within the routers.

The remote administrator 250 may need to provide authentication (e.g., username and password, signed message, etc.) before being given access to the configuration controller 275. Also, the same process described above with respect to the terminal side 288 can be used to configure a host side as well. (The configuration controller of the host side has been omitted for clarity.)

When using an IP-compatible format, a checksum is required, as it is when the using a UDP-compatible format. If routing and packet length is made constant, it is possible to perform pre-calculation of at least a portion of the checksums in order to decrease processing time.

In addition to the structures described, it is also possible to utilize a second communications controller 26 which interacts with a plurality of first communications controllers 25. As shown in FIG. 26, plural first communications controllers 25A, 25B and 25C on host sides are connected through respective communications lines 187A, 187B and 187C (which may be the same type or different types of communications media) to a network 290 (including at least one router (not shown)). A communications controller 26 is also connected to the network 290. The communications controller 26 receives packets from and sends packets to the plural first communications controllers 25A, 25B and 25C via the network 290. Using information in the received packets, the communications controller 26 can determine for which of plural bridges 27A, 27B and 27C the packet is destined. Such information may include the sending IP address or a port signifying a selected one of the bridges. For example, by utilizing a multi-port or multi-end point communications protocol, such as UDP and TCP which support multiple ports, the first bridge 27A can be identified by a common IP address and a first port (e.g., 1024), the second bridge 27B can be identified by the same common IP address and a second port (e.g., 1025), and the third bridge 27C can be identified by the same common IP address and a third port (e.g., 1026). Such a configuration would enable IP-compatible communications to pass packets between any one of the host sides 286 and the terminal side 288. Moreover, such a communication format would be able to pass through firewalls and be redirected by port number using many off-the-shelf routers and firewalls. This port-based redirection can be used instead of or in addition to the programming of the configuration controller as describe above.

As also shown in FIG. 26, the video controllers 54 and the peripheral controllers 53 can be connected to an external KVM switch 295. This enables the operator of the terminal side 286 to combine the outputs of the various host sides 286 into a single screen/display under the control of a single keyboard and/or mouse. The KVM switch can be controlled to switch between the various video and peripheral controller pairs by any one of or a combination of: (1) switches on the KVM switch or (2) commands from at least one peripheral device (e.g., keyboard and/or mouse). Alternatively, each of the video controllers 54 and the peripheral controllers 53 can be connected to respective keyboard, mice and displays such that they are each controlled independently.

Alternatively, as shown in FIG. 27, an internal KVM switch 300 can be incorporated into the housing of the terminal side 288 such that external connections for each of the video controllers 54 and the peripheral controllers 53 are not needed. In such a case, internally the connections between the internal KVM switch 300 and the video controllers 54 and the peripheral controllers 53 can be in any form (e.g., analog or digital) selected by the designer. Again, the KVM switch can be controlled to switch between the various video and peripheral controller pairs by any one of or a combination of: (1) switches on the KVM switch or (2) commands from at least one peripheral device (e.g., keyboard and/or mouse).

As shown in FIG. 28, the KVM switch 300 of FIG. 26 can be replaced by a bus controller 310. In such a configuration, the terminal side 288 can be built onto at least one daughtercard that plugs internally into a computer bus (e.g., a PCI bus, a PCI express bus, a microchannel bus, USB, FireWire, etc.) Alternatively, if the terminal side 288 daughtercard is instead made external (e.g., by housing it in an external casing), the bus controller can connect to any number of external bus connections (e.g., USB, FireWire, etc.). The computer into which the daughtercard is placed or the computer to which the external casing is attached can then configure the terminal side to establish which terminal-side bridges 27 are to communicate with what host-side bridges 24.

As discussed above, the communications line 187 may also comprise optical fiber. In one such embodiment, at least one of the buses is a PCI express bus and the differential signals thereof are sent over the optical fiber.

Based on the packet-switched communications-based embodiments described above, it is also possible to utilize broadcast or multicast communications to enable several terminals to be commanded such that they see or hear the same thing. For example, in addition to a communications control 25 being configured to send to a communications controller 26 of a corresponding user, the remote administrator 250 may configure the communications controller 25 to also send the packets to at least one other controller 26′ (but potentially plural other controllers), such as the communications controller of the remote administrator or other management personnel. This would enable remote monitoring of the activities of a user, e.g., for diagnostic and debugging purposes.

As discussed above, it is also possible to reconfigure a connection between a host side and a terminal side dynamically. A remote administrator or a user at a terminal side may request that a host side switch from communicating with a first terminal to communicating with a second terminal. For example, if a technical support specialist or administrator is looking at a screen associated with a problem, the specialist or administrator may want to “pass off” the problem to someone else. To do so, the host side 286 would be requested to change the destination of its packets corresponding to the terminal side at then end of the next bus transaction. The user at the new terminal side may have to request a video reset, such as by changing video modes, to get the screen to synchronize. Alternatively, one of the bridges may automatically set the video controller to a known state by sending a known set of video commands to the video controller. Those commands can be inserted into the stream of transactions such that it appears that the CPU issued the commands. In an embodiment where a bridge 24 (or half bridge 2200A) sends the video commands, it may monitor and store data from the CPU sufficient to regenerate the video state at a reconfiguration, regardless of the video mode of the video controller. Such data may include writes to known ports or memory areas. The same monitoring may be done for other devices on bus 21 as well.

As shown in FIG. 29, the first and second bridges of FIG. 4 may alternatively be collapsed into a single bridge implemented using two half bridges (2200A and 2200B) with one on each side. Half bridge 2200A communicates with half bridge 2200B through communications controllers 26 and 27. In such a configuration, it is not necessary for the half bridge 2200B to send “retry later” requests to the half bridge 2200A while the half bridge 2200B forwards a request on to a device connected to the bus 21. Instead, each side of the half bridge can assume that it will receive a response from the opposite side and simply waits for a response without needing to send “retry later” responses. However, it is still possible to send “retry later” responses, but it is not as efficient.

As should be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art, the configuration of FIG. 29 may also be used to perform two action transactions, as in FIG. 5, but without the need to send “retry later” messages between the two half bridges 2200A and 2200B.

As shown in FIG. 30, by utilizing the half bridges of FIG. 29, it is possible to customize the interactions between various components that were previously discussed with respect to FIG. 8. As discussed above with respect to FIG. 8, the bridge 24 presumes that it is speaking with another PCI compliant component (such as another bridge), so it will not be customarily programmed to retransmit data as a result of mis-transmission between the OPE 64 and IPE 78/FIFO 76. However, as shown in FIG. 30, it is possible for the IPE 62 to communicate with one or both of the FIFO 65 and OPE 64, and for the IPE 78 to communicate with one or both of the FIFO 75 and the OPE 77 to control flow between the two half bridges

While the invention has been described in connection with what is presently considered to be the most practical and preferred embodiment, it is to be understood that the invention is not to be limited to the disclosed embodiment, but on the contrary, is intended to cover various modifications and equivalent arrangements included within the spirit and scope of the appended claims. 

1. A remote-distance communications interface between a processor and physically disassociated peripheral controllers, comprising: a first data bus onto which the processor communicates; a second data bus, physically disassociated from the first data bus, onto which the disassociated peripheral controllers communicate; a bus interface coupling the first and second data buses to organize communication between said processor and said disassociated peripheral controllers and including at least one clock domain barrier between said first and second data buses; a first communications controller coupled to the first data bus; and a second communications controller coupled to the second data bus, wherein the communication between the first and second communications controllers is carried by packet-switch-based communications passing through at least one router.
 2. An interface according to claim 1, wherein the bus interface includes a host interface coupled to the first data bus and a terminal interface coupled to the second data bus.
 3. An interface according to claim 1, wherein the bus interface further includes a second clock domain barrier between said first and second data buses.
 4. An interface according to claim 1, wherein the packet-switch-based communications comprise IP-compatible, packet-switched communications.
 5. An interface according to claim 1, wherein the packet-switch-based communications comprise UDP-compatible, packet-switched communications.
 6. An interface according to claim 1, wherein the packet-switch-based communications comprise ATM-switch-based communications.
 7. An interface according to claim 2, wherein: the host interface further includes a first bridge coupled to the first data bus, and the terminal interface further includes a second bridge coupled to the second data bus.
 8. An interface according to claim 2, wherein: the host interface includes at least one state machine and at least one temporary storage device, and the terminal interface includes at least one other state machine and at least one other temporary storage device.
 9. An interface according to claim 8, wherein: the host interface includes: a host master state machine and a host incoming temporary storage device together providing a unidirectional path from a first communication medium to the first bridge, and a host target state machine and a host outgoing temporary storage device together providing a unidirectional path from the first bridge to the first communication medium; and the terminal interface includes: a terminal master state machine and a terminal incoming temporary storage device together providing a unidirectional path from a second communication medium to the second bridge, and a terminal target state machine and a terminal outgoing temporary storage device together providing a unidirectional path from the second bridge to the second communication medium.
 10. An interface according to claim 7, wherein the first communications controller comprises a first FPGA and the second communications controller comprises a second FPGA.
 11. An interface according to claim 7, wherein the host interface further includes a first ASIC coupled between the first bridge and the first communication medium and the terminal interface further includes a second ASIC coupled between the second bridge and the second communication medium.
 12. An interface according to claim 7, wherein the host interface further includes: a host master state machine coupled to output to the first bridge; a first FIFO outputting master bus data to the host master state machine; a host incoming packet processor coupled to the first communication medium to receive packets from the first communication medium, format convert the packets and output the format converted packets to the first FIFO; a host target state machine coupled to input target bus data from the first bridge; a second FIFO receiving the target bus data from the host target state machine; and a host outgoing packet processor coupled to the first communication medium to format the target bus data from the second FIFO into packets and deliver the packets onto the first communication medium; and wherein the terminal interface further includes: a terminal master state machine coupled to output to the second bridge; a third FIFO outputting master bus data to the terminal master state machine; a terminal incoming packet processor coupled to the second communication medium to receive packets from the second communication medium, format convert the packets and output the format converted packets to the third FIFO; a terminal target state machine coupled to input target bus data from the second bridge; a fourth FIFO receiving the target bus data from the terminal target state machine; and a terminal outgoing packet processor coupled to the second communication medium to format the target bus data from the fourth FIFO into packets and deliver the packets onto the second communication medium.
 13. An interface according to claim 9, wherein the host incoming temporary storage device receives data packets from the terminal outgoing temporary storage device.
 14. An interface according to claim 9, wherein the host and terminal interfaces provide cut-through switching from the host outgoing storage device to the first communications controller and from the terminal outgoing storage device to the second communications controller, respectively.
 15. An interface according to claim 9, wherein the host and terminal interfaces provide store-and-forward switching from the host outgoing storage device to the first communications controller and from the terminal outgoing storage device to the second communications controller, respectively.
 16. An interface according to claim 11, wherein the first and second ASICs further respectively include first and second FIFOs.
 17. An interface according to claim 11, wherein the first and second ASICs further respectively include first and second pairs of ASICs.
 18. An interface according to claim 13, wherein the terminal incoming temporary storage device receives data packets from the host outgoing temporary storage device.
 19. An interface according to claim 10, wherein the first and second FPGAs further respectively include first and second pairs of FPGAs.
 20. An interface according to claim 18, wherein terminal and host outgoing temporary storage devices retain a certain data packet after sending the certain data packet to, respectively, the host and terminal incoming temporary storage devices and clear said certain data packet only after said respective host and terminal incoming temporary storage devices return acknowledgments corresponding to said certain data packet.
 21. An interface according to claim 19, wherein the first and second pairs of FIFOs include buffers to store data already output onto the first communication medium and the second communication medium until receipt of said data is acknowledged.
 22. An interface according to claim 19, wherein the first and second pairs of FIFOs include buffers to store data already output onto the first communication medium and the second communication medium and to repeat the stored data output when an acknowledgment is not received after a predetermined time.
 23. A computer system, comprising: a processor; an applications storage device operatively associated with the processor to provide the processor with applications routines; local peripheral controllers operatively associated with user computer peripherals and interfacing said applications routines with said user computer peripherals; a split data bus comprising: a first data bus onto which the processor and applications storage device communicate; a second data bus onto which the local peripheral controllers communicate; and a bus interface coupling the first and second data buses and including at least one clock domain barrier between said first and second data buses; a first communications controller coupled to the first data bus; and a second communications controller coupled to the second data bus, wherein communication between the first and second communications controllers is carried by packet-switch-based communications.
 24. The computer system according to claim 23, wherein the bus interface further includes a second clock domain barrier.
 25. The computer system according to claim 23, wherein the local peripherals include two from the group consisting of: a video controller; a sound card; removable storage; and a PCI-compliant peripheral controller.
 26. The computer system according to claim 23, further including at least one user device comprising at least one of a keyboard and a pointing device, said user device producing user device signals input directly to said bus interface and passing to said first data bus without passing through said second data bus.
 27. The computer system according to claim 25, wherein the packet-switch-based communications comprise IP-compatible, packet-switched communications.
 28. The computer system according to claim 25, wherein the packet-switch-based communications comprise UDP-compatible, packet-switched communications.
 29. The computer system according to claim 25, wherein the packet-switch-based communications comprise ATM-based communications. 